


Pinocchio, or the boy who wanted to be real

by the_authors_exploits



Series: AJ's AUs [3]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Robot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-10 18:30:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8928364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_authors_exploits/pseuds/the_authors_exploits
Summary: Bruce loses himself in his grief, and Tim has to pick up the pieces





	

**Author's Note:**

> Happy new year, have some angst!

He starts with an alloy base; something durable, something that won’t break in an explosion, something that can’t be lost. It needs to be light enough for Bruce to carry, weighty enough to feel real, flexible enough to bend at the joints, to look human.

It has to look like Jason; bending the skull is the hardest to do, molding it into the likeness of Jason’s bone structure, his cheeks, his chin, his brows. It takes multiple tries to get it right, to have the perfect metal structure.

“Master Bruce,” Alfred interrupts one night, and Bruce keeps his hands steady as he puts the finishing touches on the skull. “You need rest; you need to speak to someone. You can’t keep yourself locked in here, working on…” the butler waves his hand at the machine. “This.”

“This!” Bruce turns on his butler. “This is what’s important!”

Alfred shakes his head; “Jason is gone, Master Bruce; we need to move on.”

Bruce’s fingers flutter over a half formed arm, wires curling out and sparking. “Leave; if you are just going to get in a way, get out of here.”

Alfred does, a few moments later, leaving a plate of food and cup of coffee that goes cold before Bruce realizes its presence; he goes on patrol, returns, calls Fox for more alloy and wires and a specialist on robotic science. He bends back over his work desk and stares at the cold piece of metal, the skull of his robot; it is emotionless, uncaring, blank…

But it won’t be like that soon; Bruce gathers more materials, paint and electronics and moveable joints, and he selects hair from a renown wig company. Real hair, donated by someone with the same auburn shade as Jason. Or at least as close to his shade, how unique his son was; irreplaceable, gone forever.

He gets the joints to work, quietly turning and rolling, little whirling of gears or the crackle of electricity barely audible; the noises will be muffled even more, hidden away behind silicone muscles and synthetic skin. He attaches the limbs, the hand to the arm, arm connecting at the elbow, connecting to the torso, torso and neck, neck and head; the hips connect the legs to the torso, the knee bends over the workbench, feet attach to the bottom of the legs…

The toes droop, and fingers curl limply; the figure isn’t charged yet, isn’t ready to awaken. It might be, after Bruce puts on the skin, places the eyes. The skin will feel right, the hair will be real, the eyes will be unique, body heat and it will survive duress; Bruce rocks back in his desk chair, admires how far he’s come. The perfect sculptor of the skull, the hollowed out eye sockets, the perfect curve of the torso…

It won’t breathe; the thought hits him suddenly. There’s a nose in place, the bone structure for the skin to be molded perfectly, but it won’t breathe. He gets on the phone, calls up Fox.

“You know those medical dummies? The ones who breathe?”

“Yes, Mister Wayne, I’m aware of them; we’ve donated quite a number to some hospitals in the past.”

“I need a breathing mechanism from them; get me one of the breathing mechanisms.”

The skin arrives when Fox tells him to expect the breathing mechanism; the hair arrives, the glass eyes, and Bruce goes about fixing the hair into the skin. He makes the perfect head of bushy auburn hair, molds it over the skull just to test it. He settles small cameras into the eyes, threads wires into the processing center, fixes it to be perfect.

It’s been five months since Jason’s funeral, since Bruce brought back the broken body of his son, since the idea started to form; he’s seen the ladies walking real life dolls about the park, some formed in the image of their lost child, others simply because they can’t have their own or they find the dolls sweet. But Jason wasn’t a baby, Jason was a kid, a teenager; and no one made real life teenage dolls.

So Bruce would make his own, molded perfectly, actually alive.

When the lung machine comes in is when the figure really starts coming together; he fits the thing into the torso, tests out the machinery, watches the chest rise and fall. It’s going to be perfect…

The silicone fits over the metal, the skin is glued onto that, the glass eyes set into their place, and Bruce can’t wait for it to be finished completely before getting it up and running; he’s decided on a trustworthy battery that will charge under light, whether it be solar or not, that has a long life. He puts the sensors just beneath the skin, unnoticeable but it will work.

The thing is coming together, and he decides after a full day of molding the skin and putting the pieces together that he can’t wait; he puts two wires together, completing the circuit, and he steps back to watch his son come to life.

It does, slowly, little twitches as the machinery bends and tests its maneuverability; the AI was difficult to make, as were the other organs and internal connections, but Bruce fixed it all. He holds his breath as the robot comes to life, as the lids that he so carefully molded skin over shut and open and shut and open. The glass eyes roll around the room curiously, or at least Bruce sees curiosity. They have no emotion in them, just blank vastness that shines beneath the lights of the Batcave.

They land on Bruce, aquamarine sheen, and the thing blinks; it’s not his son, he can tell, even though the half covered torso heaves with air. But he hopes; so he sits in his chair and rolls closer, right up to the thing. Bruce’s eyes stare intently, roving over the skin, watch closely as the eyes track him.

“You are Jason,” he orders, as if he can make the machine be his son. "You are Jason,” he repeats, as if he can make himself believe it. “You are my son.”

When the machine blinks, glassy eyes reflecting Bruce’s hopeful gaze, not even the slightest twitch of a smile or recognition, Bruce turns away.

He takes it up to the house, lets it roam the halls, watches it closely in the library; but it shows no interest in the books, rather more focused on the tree out the window. Bruce shows it Jason’s bedroom, untouched for months, a pair of jeans tossed over his desk chair and a shirt laid out on the pristine bed, the knickknacks on the dresser, the games on the bookshelf, the books piled next to the bed stand.

The robot, skinless from the abdomen down to its ankles, walks stiffly out of the room as if nothing here matters; Bruce tells Alfred to cook cheesecake, and offers it to the robot. Again, the thing shows no interest, eyes unseeing as they glance about the dining room. The plate of food goes sailing through the air and smashes against the wall, frustration aching in Bruce’s muscles; the thing that should be Jason doesn’t even flinch.

“You’re not Jason,” Bruce says. His shoulders slump, disappointment coursing through him as he buries his face in his hands; this thing is a poor amalgamation, a poor rendition of what his son should be. It feels warm, it looks real, it moves naturally; it’s passable, but Bruce knows better. All his hard work, all his hopes and dreams, for nothing.

This blank faced, hollow eyed thing is not his son and will never be; but to be rid of it would be to kill Jason again, so Bruce lets it stay, lets it haunt the halls like a quiet ghost. The skin is still unfinished, the silicone muscles shining under the lights on its thighs; it walks around naked, never eating, uncaring of food or sleep.

Bruce goes out to meetings, to events, he smiles at the cameras and drives the Batmobile through the streets at night. He greets the machine upon his return.

Bruce brushes a hand through the auburn hair, smiling sadly at the thing. “Hello, Jason.”

The thing blinks, and Bruce sighs, weary and grief ridden; they sit down for dinner, Bruce eating and a plate cooling before the robot, and even Alfred finds himself treating it like a part of the family. He smiles at the robot boy, and the day it smiles back is the beginning of a change.

“Master Bruce,” Alfred greets when Bruce arrives home after a day at Wayne Enterprises. “I believe the young one and I have something to show you.” He turns to look over his shoulder, beckoning the robot further into the entryway.

The thing shuffles in, on hesitant feet, and Bruce watches it closely; it looks at him, hesitant in that too, and suddenly Bruce isn’t seeing a robot but he’s seeing his son. It smiles; a gentle twitch in the cheeks first, and then his lips pull back and he’s sheepishly smiling at Bruce. The actions is slightly uncoordinated but it’s still clearly a smile; Bruce smiles back.

He takes him out to the city on occasion; the dark tinted windows hiding the being; Bruce has no problem leaving the robot in the car as he runs errands on Saturday or Sunday, coming back to that same sheepish smile. If Bruce can focus solely on the smile and ignore the blank eyes he can imagine it’s really his son. He buys the thing a set of clothes, considers molding the rest of the skin across its body, but one look at the eyes and Bruce loses all motivation.

This thing isn’t real, and Bruce has to accept that his son is dead. But he still has an obligation to this creation he’s made.

It’s on one of those days where Bruce and the thing are out in the city; Bruce has just duked into a store, leaving Jason to observe the streets and on-goings. It’s been a full year and 3 months since Jason’s burial, a full 9 months since Bruce awoke the replacement. Bruce should have known, should have planned, for this to happen; he should have anticipated and planned for the fiasco.

But he hadn’t, and when the robbers come out of the electronics store across the street with a hostage in hand and guns waving the thing reacts faster than Bruce can; it’s across the street, oversized hoodie hanging off its frame, and one of the robbers is unconscious on the ground, nose bleeding, before the other hostage holder can even catch sight of his opponent.

And when he goes down, one heavy fist colliding with his temple and the other one disarming the gun, the hostage is swept into the thing’s arms and away from danger.

Tim Drake knows, by the power behind the other’s actions and by the way their arms felt around him, that his rescuer isn’t as human as he seemed; a few feet from his would be kidnappers, Tim is set down and his rescuer glances at him with blank eyes. When his hand glides against silicone on the other’s abdomen, something starts to form in Tim’s mind; he puts the pieces together fast, but he’s not fearful. Shocked, but he can recover quick and he does; Tim’s resilient.

“Hi,” Tim begins, watching the teen sink into his hoodie. “Thanks for that; I wasn’t too worried, they were hardly talented at what they were doing. Idiots didn’t even figure out that the money’s retrieved on Tuesdays, which makes a Wednesday a stupid day to plan a heist.”

The boy says nothing, and when the sirens grow closer and the cop cars come screeching to a halt in the parking lot (nearly running over Bruce Wayne, Tim notes) the boy jolts and sinks lower in his jacket, as if fearful and unawares; Tim smiles encouragingly at him, reaching out to rub his arm.

“Hey, it’s ok.” He knows the boy looks familiar, but can’t quite place his face and doesn’t care to try; he thinks that’s another shock for another day. “It’s ok.”

“Mister Wayne, please step back!” One cop calls, and Bruce says something back, gesturing at the robot boy that’s curling closer to Tim. The cop turns her attention to the pair of teenagers. “Son, are you alright?”

Other cops go rushing for the robbers, and Tim lets the boy hold onto him; the female cop whose name tag reads Ruthly, steps forward and eyes Tim’s rescuer. It’s a miracle, Tim thinks as the cops get statements and a paramedic is called in to check him over, that they don’t figure out that his companion isn’t fully human; it probably helps that Bruce whisks him away as soon as possible.

And Bruce does, very easily with his influence, but Tim is not done with the billionaire; he plans and plots and arrives early the next morning with firm words.

“What did you do?” Tim accuses the moment the door opens, not even caring that the butler has answered. “What did you do?” he raises his voice to be heard throughout the house, and only relaxes when a familiar auburn head pokes out from a room down the hallway. “Hello,” he greets, voice softening, and then he glares at the butler. “Where’s Bruce?”

Alfred folds his hands expertly, watches the teenager with a practiced gaze. “Master Bruce is unavailable at the moment.”

“When will he be available?”

The other boy draws near, and Alfred gets distracted trying to send him away; “I am unsure, Master Drake; can I take a message?”

“I’ll wait.”

The thing reaches pass Alfred and grips Tim’s wrist, tugs, and Tim slides pass the butler.

“What’s his name?” Because it’s not Jason, it’s a robot, a manufactured piece, but it still has an identity, an awareness about how it moves.

Alfred wrings his hands. “He… He doesn’t have one.”

Tim doesn’t know everything, but he can assume; grief is a motivator of the strangest ideas. “Come on, Jace, show me the backyard.”

He yells at Bruce, berates him for never finishing the robot. It may not be real but he is aware and deserves care; Tim demands to have access to Bruce’s supplies.

“It doesn’t care.”

“Well I do!” Tim glares up at the billionaire, arms crossed. “Where’s the skin you were using? And any extra bits you have left over, in case I have to repair him later.”

Bruce falters, and Tim rolls his eyes.

“If it’s with your Batsuit then by all means just point me in the direction.” Tim glances at the robot, as if to make sure it’s not getting into trouble, and the thing blinks at him. “Not that big of a deal.”

Alfred hides a chuckle behind a delicately folded fist; it takes more convincing and explaining and shouting before Bruce is comfortable with letting the boy into their life, but then Tim is definitely a constant. In both Bruce’s life and Batman’s; however reluctant Bruce is to show his vigilante side to the boy, the robot—affectionately dubbed Jace by Tim, and something clicked when Tim named him—easily shows Tim the way.

Jace knows it from observing Bruce, and from being brought up the first time; when Tim, kind and patient and attentive, asks Jace if he knows where Bruce goes at night there’s no question about answering. Jace stands and guides Tim from the living room, where Tim was finishing molding skin along his thigh, to the clock, shows him the secret code, points him down into the cave.

Tim lets him go too; it’s interesting, because no one pays much attention to Jace here. Alfred is nice, the man in a pressed suit and smelling of peppermint candy, more vocal than the other man in the other suit; but the one Jace likes the most is Tim.

Tim with his wide eyes and stern expression, his warm voice and firm determination, the way he glares up at Bruce—the other man in the other suit—the man who’s supposed to be Jace’s father. But the man hardly ever looks at him without pain, and though he gives soft hugs and kind touches there’s a barrier between them; but Jace has seen the pictures strewn about the house, covering the walls, with his face in them.

He was smiling, and so was Bruce—his father?—and they look like they were happy; but Jace can’t remember the event. The sun or the grass or the present in his hands; when is his birthday? He remembers the first time he saw Bruce, sitting on a workbench and Bruce looking manic, relief evident in his eyes; the words echoed in the cold cave.

_“You are my son.”_

Jace goes through the databases he can find online, wikis on memory loss and how to recover it, how to find one’s voice again, runs it all through his head; Tim puts on the Robin suit—there’s a small picture on the corner of the work bench, and Jace thinks it’s himself—and tells Jace to stay put.

“Don’t touch anything, I’ll be back with Bruce in a bit.” The boy looks nervous, but Jace can’t comfort him because his throat is empty. “He’s just in a little bit of trouble, but don’t worry. I’ll bring him home.”

Jace waits, and Tim delivers on his promise; he brings home Jace’s father, the man bleeding and Tim look disheveled. It happens again and again, though they don’t always return with bruises, and Jace watches Bruce train and mold Tim when the boy proves persistent in becoming the next Robin.

“Dick called earlier,” Tim says one night, and Jace nudges closer when Bruce’s reaction is to tense. “I didn’t say anything about Jace.”

“Good; what did he want?”

“Wanted to know if you were going to visit the grave this year; it’s been one year.”

Bruce leaves the room on heavy feet; “I’ll call him later.”

Tim turns a smile on Jace, but it’s hollow; “How was your day?”

Jace wants to answer; he wants to tell Tim that he helped Alfred cook the meatloaf they had for dinner, wants to tell Tim he found a book marked with chicken scratch hand writing shoved behind the couch… Wants to tell Tim he’s learning how to read again, that he’s trying so hard to remember what happened and why he forgot and how to speak.

Oh, he wants to speak; he has so many questions. What was he like? Was he always timid like this, pliant and unresisting? Had he been stubborn and intelligent? Was he strong or weak? Was he loved?

He wants to know Tim’s memories of him, wants to know Alfred’s and Bruce’s; he catches glimpses at times, when Bruce leaves rooms fast and Alfred swallows down a frown. Grief, he concludes; they remember him. So why can’t he remember them?

Perhaps he should find his voice first; he tries to speak often, opening his mouth and Tim tips his head to the side patient. One day, something lights in his eyes and his face goes from calm patience to a burning fury and he goes marching from the room calling for Bruce.

“You didn’t give him a voice box?!”

“It…slipped my mind.”

“Oh but you gave him a gastrointestinal tract and lungs but not a voice, right, of course!”

It’s ok, Jace wants to say; please don’t be mad. I can fix this, he wants to say.

He goes searching again; there are voices online, and while Tim dozes off watching Alaskan Frontier Jason sits and sifts through the internet. He’s tried learning words from watching the videos uploaded of him and Bruce—his father, yes, Bruce is his father—but he thinks there’s a part of him missing.

So he finds a mechanical voice, one of the ones that read text to the visually impaired, finds the closest one to the voice in the videos; pitch changes it, alters it delicately until it’s a perfect mimic, and he downloads it. He doesn’t feel any different when the download is complete, but he lays in wait for the perfect time to share this new found intelligence.

It comes during breakfast one day, when the day marked “Jason” in red on the calendar is coming up, and Tim sets a plate of toast in front of Jace; he swallows nervously, takes a breath, perfectly mimics the movements of speaking.

“Pass the jam please?”

His voice comes out more quiet than he had wanted; he’ll have to adjust the volume. This isn’t a library; still, Tim drops his fork and Bruce spills his coffee, coughing. Tim turns wide eyes on Jace, lips parted, and Bruce stands hurriedly, still coughing, flapping at the coffee spill on his trousers.

“What?” Tim squeaks, and Jace blinks; it’s still a blank gaze of glass, unnerving when he opens his mouth and speaks again.

“The jam.” There; that was much better, and Jace smiles eagerly at Tim. “Did I say it right?”

His chair clatters to the ground, skittering and rocking where it lands, and his fists are clenched “Holy fuck!”

“Language, Master Tim,” Alfred chides; his voice is choked and he reaches to take the coffee cup from Bruce; Bruce slams the cup down instead, and Jace jumps.

He’s startled; did he do something wrong? His face morphs into confusion, fearfully so, and he inches closer to Tim who readily puts a hand on his shoulder; it’s natural, it’s habit. “Did I do something wrong?”

“A word, Timothy” is growled before Jace’s father leaves the room in a hurry.

Tim doesn’t let him speak again; his hand slides into Jace’s hair, pulling his head against the other’s stomach. An embrace. “Stay here,” he says, warmly, and scratches Jace’s scalp. “I’ll go talk to him.” His smile is as warm as his voice when he pulls away. “You really startled us; don’t worry.”

There’s an argument from the hallway (“I never gave you permission to install a voice box!”, “You think I did this?”), and Bruce doesn’t return to breakfast; Jace only finishes his toast when Tim returns and engages him in a conversation. Life gets so much easier now that Jace can communicate; can ask questions, learn and inform.

“So where was this taken?” he asks one day, handing over a picture to Tim; Tim has all the answers, just like he has all the patience and heart.

Tim takes the frame, studies the photo; “That was after a play Jason was in; Bruce brought him chocolate as a congratulations. It was a good play; I always did like Hamlet. Something about ghosts communicating with the living always gets me.”

That’s the thing about Tim; he never calls Jace by his full name. He’s always been Jace; and when talking about the past, Tim never talks as if Jace was there. Maybe it’s because Jace can’t remember, so Tim is giving him the option to forget completely. It’s a nice sentiment, but Jace wants to remember.

So he asks Alfred what Jason was like, and the butler is kind and shows him how to make the perfect tea and showcases Jason’s favorite mug (Wonder Woman…did he meet Wonder Woman?), shares memories that Jace has no knowledge of. He pesters Tim more and the teenager is ever calm; he shares what he knows, sits shoulder to shoulder with Jace and flips through one of his many photo albums.

“And this was the night I found Robin in an alleyway bleeding; he was messed up, some assholes with a few knives cut him up and I had to stay with him until Batman arrived.”

“But I was ok, right?”

Tim tips his head to the side, not missing the pronoun usage. “Jason was, yes; I took the picture earlier that night, when he was just watching the streets.”

Past Jace looks rugged and lonely, determined and deadly; present Jace doesn’t feel that. He wants to help people, with kindness and a willing ear, like Tim does.

“Jace,” Tim says carefully, setting aside the pictures. “You know you aren’t Jason, right?”

He reaches for the photo album again, but Tim scoops it up fast and scampers a few steps away.

“No, answer me; Jace. You aren’t Jason.”

“No,” Jace says, standing too, and he reaches for the album again. “Let’s just…let’s just go back to the photos. Please.”

In his mind, where he’s done all his research, no need for computers when he is one, he sees a flash of an article: _Jason Todd murdered_. He reaches for the album again, breathing shallowly.

“Please, let’s just…” He wants to be real; he can be real, they just have to let him.

Tim puts the album down and steps closer, trying to catch Jace’s vacant gaze. “Jace, you aren’t Jason; he’s dead.”

“No!” Jace pushes Tim, gently, always careful to reign in his strength; he squished three door knobs before he learned to be gentle. Tim barely stumbles. “You’re lying, I’m right here! I’m breathing!”

“No you’re not; you just…you think you are because you were made to replicate reality.” Tim reaches a hand out, and Jace whirls away.

“I have a voice now! I’m real!”

“You downloaded a file from the internet,” Tim keeps his voice calm and even, but Jace won’t have any of it and Tim is momentarily afraid the robot is going to destroy something in his panic. “Jace, you have to remember; remember Bruce turning you on, I put your skin on you.”

“I’m real!”

“You’re missing parts; your eyes aren’t real, they’re glass. Your lungs are machines, your organs are containers…”

Jace shrieks and grips the coffee table, flipping it over and the photo album clatters and the pages scrunch; Tim holds his hands out placatingly.

“Jace, calm down.”

He reaches for the couch cushion and his hands tear a pillow apart; feathers go flying, floating across the air currents, and Tim knows he has to stop this now. If only Bruce hadn’t abandoned them so much… He should be here; but he’s grieving, especially with Jason’s death day having just passed.

Tim moves fast, sprightly, and Jace is unprepared for when he lands a chop against his throat, kicks his knees out, and wraps Jace in a headlock; one arm crossed across his throat, another framing his head in place, and Jace thrashes while Tim manipulates them into a position that gives him full control.

Tim squeezes his arms tight, and Jace grits his teeth and cries out; he tries to break free, tugging on Tim’s arms and seems to abort elbowing Tim’s side.

“Can you breathe?” Tim calls out, over the sounds of their scuffle. “Can you breathe?”

Jace settles down slowly, and then his arms go limp; Tim waits patiently, squeezing imperceptibly tighter to get his point across. Jace slumps against his chest. “I can.”

In one smooth motion, Tim shoves the machine away, twists, and chops him between his shoulder blades; Jace goes to his hands and knees with the motion, but he doesn’t grunt or seem to be injured. “Did that hurt? Did that hurt?!”

It makes a sound like a sob, but Tim knows there will be no tears; it can’t make tears, it doesn’t have the capability.

“You’re not Jason,” Tim says; his voice is quiet now, trying to be comforting; he watches Jason’s shoulders shake, his head bowed low, and knows that he’s ruining Jace’s entire world. “You’re not…you’re not real.”

A child in a cage, with the monster outside, rattling the bars into breaking; this isn’t your world, it shrieks, this spot of safety is not real! Tim hates being the monster but Bruce left him no choice.

“I feel real! I just…I just can’t remember!” Jace turns and grabs at Tim’s wrist; not tight, though Tim is sure he has the might to break his bones. Yet he’s always shocked Tim with his gentleness. “I will though! I promise! I’ll be his son again, I just need to remember!”

“Jason’s dead,” Tim says, slipping his wrist out of the robot’s grasp to hold his hand. “Bruce made you.”

Jace shakes his head, tightening his grip, and Tim watches him closely.

“Jace… You’re a robot, with synthetic skin and an alloy skeleton, with fake organs to synthesize reality.”

“No, you’re lying! I’m real!”

Tim kneels and takes hold of Jace’s shoulders, tipping his head to get the thing’s attention. “You’re real, as in you’re alive, but you aren’t… You aren’t a real person; you’re a machine. Jace; Bruce created you after Jason died, and you found your voice and you act real but you aren’t… You aren’t him.”

Jace sobs again, shoulders heaving and the noise synthesized from his throat crackles; his chest, the mechanical lungs, shake and shudder. His glass eyes stay emotionless, but Tim can still feel his pain; he pulls Jace close, lets the robot cling to his shirt, the fingers curling and its voice rising high in a wail.

“I want to be real!”

The desperation makes Tim hold him tighter; “I’m sorry, Jace…”

He’d always known he was different, wrong; but he had hoped.

_I tried so hard to be real…_


End file.
